America’s Culture War

It has taken many years to dumb Americans down. Many Americans don’t have the historical or current “context” required to make informed, cogent decisions on their future. The educational system did this to us. Our schools no longer teach civics, the Rule of Law, the Constitution, or the Bill of Rights to students.

“Hands up; don’t shoot!” Taking a knee during the National Anthem. Economic disparity. Social injustice. Racism. White privilege. Black Lives Matter, Black Nationalism, Antifa, Occupy, Marxists, fascists, illegal aliens, the alt-right, law enforcement, the NFL, the military, religion, secularism, denial of free speech. There is a Culture War brewing in America and it is being waged on our streets, on school campuses, in professional athletic arenas and on television and radio daily and normal, hard-working Americans are increasingly being caught in the cross hairs of this battle for the soul of our national identity and value systems.

Where is it coming from? What is the veracity of the claims of “social injustice” by the complainants?” And who is instigating it and why?

As America becomes a more diverse society, our melting pot of cultures, ethnicities, religions and values are colliding and in conflict. While previously, most immigrants who came to this country for a better life and enhanced opportunities for themselves and their families desired to assimilate into our culture and become American citizens; this goal doesn’t necessarily resonate with many in the newest waves of multi-cultural nationals immigrating to the U.S.

Unfortunately, today, it is about exclusivity instead of inclusivity with American culture. We now have hyphenated-Americans. Enter “African-Americans,” with no real ties to Africa, nor any knowledge of the diverse peoples and cultures of a continent absent from their blood lineage for 200 years; Asian-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Muslim-Americans; you name it. The once prized oath of American citizenship is soon replaced and forgotten by cries to have a separate Sharia Law.

In a huge mistake to accommodate the huge waves of Hispanic immigrants and illegals from Mexico, Central America, Cuba and elsewhere, we are now a “Press one for English” society with multi-lingual voter ballots and driver license applications. We have created a false entitlement sentiment that tells people coming to and now residing in our country that being American isn’t important because we will change our language and values to accommodate you. If you are here illegally and want a driver’s license; no problem, you got it. Why wait in line for the proper vetting process in the path towards citizenship when you can climb over a fence or cross a river and go directly to the head of the line and receive amnesty.

When politicians placate the masses for reasons of political expediency, they dilute the substance of what it is to be an “American.” These ruling elite don’t really care about the national harm they create because they have their new constituency and their political power base grows while we true Americans and our children are forced to flounder in a society comprised of dumbed down and dysfunctional education, labor, medical, social service and justice systems. As we have come to learn, the “feel good” and politically correct legislation of sanctuary cities and states are in no way mitigated by rising crimes rates, illegal alien recidivists who prey on our citizens and obstruct our ability to control our borders and properly vet those who live here.

Is there really “social injustice” in America?

The culture of America is rapidly changing and not at all for the best. We hear a lot about “social injustice” these days. In fact, if you talk with fake social justice warrior former professional football player Colin Kaepernick and a growing number of his NFL football players, America is racist and apparently rife with social injustice. But how do they define the term “social injustice” and what if any social injustice have they experienced personally?

From what I have gleaned listening to the Kaepernick’s in American society, “social injustice” is defined as systematic police brutality, racism and a disproportionate number of blacks incarcerated in jails and prisons for crimes. But what truths if any, are to be found in their definition?

Racism – Is really about context and comparison. Are we really a more discriminatory and racist society today than we were fifty years ago when Rev. Martin Luther King lead equality and civil rights marches through places like Selma, Alabama, Charleston and Washington, DC? Do blacks have less employment opportunities, less opportunities for advanced education, for higher positions in the work place? Is there the same or less level of mixed marriages; integration into schools, middle and upper-class neighborhoods, churches, workplaces, government and the military? You might want to ask former President Barrack Obama, former Secretary of State, Gen. Colin Powell, former U.S. Attorney Generals Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch, Dr. Ben Carson and even Maxine Waters and Fredericka Wilson about that.

If social injustice is defined by solely by racism, then yes, there is some level of injustice. The contextual issues are: (1) What is the level of racism in the U.S. now, as compared to 50 years ago? (2) Have we improved in our treatment of blacks and other minorities since the days of the civil rights marches? (3) Are their more, or less opportunities for minorities? and (4) Do minorities have more, or less participatory input into how America changes than 50 years ago? There can really be no rational doubt that minorities haven’t gained on many, very positive levels in all the above areas.

Next, how does the U.S. compare in minority relations to our international counterparts with similar diverse societies? If you have done any international traveling, or are informed on civics and civil rights internationally, there is simply no rational argument that America doesn’t lead the world in civil rights, opportunities, freedoms and advancement for minorities.

This is not to say that we as a nation do not have our faults. However again, it is the totality of context that is important to keep in mind here. We need to remember that the “United States of America” was created by our founding fathers to be the world’s first experiment in democracy. All governments experience growing pains and since our nation was first founded, we have continued to experience and revolve challenges within our diverse culture. We survived a horrendous Civil War, slavery, several World Wars and international conflicts, racial segregation and a civil rights movement, 9-11 and significant legal and illegal immigration. We have growing pains, but there is no longer any “systemic racism” in the U.S., nor any credible evidence to support that claim.

If one simply investigates most of the Marxist-inspired revolutionary, anarchist groups and leftist monetary supporters like George Soros, Black Lives Matter, Black Nationalism, the New Black Panther Party, Antifa, Occupy, the Revolutionary Communist Workers’ Party, et al., who are at the forefront of protests against law enforcement, the Rule of Law and our democratic form of government a central anti-American government theme emerges. One should know that the genesis governments of these protest groups, Russia, Cuba, Valenzuela, North Korea; and the militant terrorist organizations Hamas and ISIS, are not known for their resonance towards personal freedoms or social justice.

The cultural clash here should be obvious to even the most naïve or biased. These instigators of protest seek to disenfranchise, diminish, defund and dissolve law enforcement who protect our Rule of Law. The leaders of these militant and politically subversive groups seek to divide this nation and its people. When the low-informed, disengaged and biased public and mainstream media forward the false narratives and specious arguments of these groups, they cut away at the constitutional foundations of this nation. This is an important objective of those who oppose decent and loyal Americans in the Culture War.

Systemic police racism and brutality against blacks – Contrary to all the Black Lives Matter, Kaepernick, Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Chuck Schumer, Maxine Waters and MSM about police racism and brutality, we have unprecedented numbers of blacks and other minority men and women integrated into law enforcement today. In fact, for the past 30 years, the clear emphasis in law enforcement hiring has been geared towards having more, not less minority officers in police forces at all levels of policing. This coincides with a significant increase in minority chiefs of police, directors and superintendents who administrate many if not most of our largest urban American cities: Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Miami, San Francisco, Oakland, Cleveland, Detroit, Baltimore and the U.S. Department of Justice.

As has been forensically proven through four separate police investigations including one conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice/FBI under former USAG Eric Holder, the cry of “Hands up; don’t shoot!” often screamed out by Black Lives Matter protesters and NFL National Anthem knee-takers was a blatantly false narrative that never occurred in the Michael Brown shooting case in Ferguson, MO. In fact, it was as false as the unsourced pseudo statistics so freely given out by Black Lives Matter spokesholes and their surrogates during protests and on MSM TV/radio interviews.

In reality, more black males are shot and killed in justifiable self-defense shootings by other blacks than by police. Twice as many whites are killed by police than blacks and shootings of black males by police have seen a 75% reduction during the past 25 years. Criminologist Dr. Heather MacDonald has used 2016 FBI statistics to document that there has been a 900% increase murders of black adolescents and adults since Black Lives Matter emerged on the American scene in 2014. Why isn’t the mainstream media telling this story?

On the other hand, black males kill police officers at a rate seven times greater than police kill them and the total black male population in the U.S. is only seven percent of our total population. In fact, the far more accurate figures on blacks being killed by police show that the chances of a black man in the U.S. encountering and being killed by a police officer are statistically less than them being killed by a bolt of lightning during a storm. Amazing isn’t it; but you will never hear that fact uttered by Black Lives Matter, the NFL knee-takers, or the MSM.

The truth is that those extremely few, rogue police officers who violate their oaths of office and commit crimes and civil rights violations against members of the minority community are prosecuted and tried by judges or juries of their peers. Police have far more prosecutorial oversight than judges, attorneys, politicians and the general public. Despite the MSM’s generalized impression of law enforcement, police by far enjoy a higher level of public support and credibility than those attorneys and politicians who criticize them.

Real “social injustice” lies within the NFL – Using the NFL knee-takers’ definition of social inequality and injustice, it is actually the NFL players who practice systemic inequality and injustice. Seventy percent of NFL players are black. Nearly 100% are millionaires and multi-millionaires who don’t work all-year-round. They enjoy lush pension funds. Their stadiums in large part are subsidized by hard-working public taxpayers who earn less than a fraction in a lifetime of work what some players earn in a single season. NFL players with barely a four-year degree earn many more times what the most highly educated and skilled medical practitioners make. The typical NFL first-round draft rookie player’s signing bonus is over 100 times the yearly salary of a soldier deployed in war zones in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and other high-risk war zones. The commercial endorsements of NFL players bring them millions more dollars in income that would stagger the imagination of the average fan in the minority community.

NFL player knee-takers live a rich and lavish lifestyle that rivals most rock stars. They reside in guarded, gated communities in mansions surrounded by all the accoutrements of extreme wealth. Custom sports cars, boats, jets, private vacation offshore resorts, jewelry, flocks of adoring women. Not quite the reality we normal people are used to. These are blessed, mostly singularly-skilled people, who live in and recreate in a protected bubble like their equally ignorant Hollywood celebrity counterparts. So why are multi-millionaire NFL players suddenly talking about systemic racism, social injustice, police violence and comparing themselves to slaves on a plantation? Because they are the willing and ignorant “social justice” soldiers in America’s new Culture War. If you find out who is feeding them false narratives and propaganda, then you will have discovered the Joseph Goebbels of their movement.

For a relatively small community, NFL payers commit a disproportionate level of misdemeanor offenses and felony crimes of violence including murder, aggravated assault, sexual assault, domestic violence, drug sales, drug influence and gun crimes. The majority of NFL offenders get off with light sentences and probation because they are the elite rich who can afford the most expensive and best attorneys. In comparison, their blue collar or unemployed fans most usually end up in jail or prison for similar type crimes. Why don’t you ask their victims about the acts “social injustice” committed upon them by knee-taking NFL players.

Political posturing, partisanship and upheaval – The “fix” is in.

Have you ever stopped to consider that a mere 535 people keep the United States from moving forward towards its manifest destiny of becoming a truly forward-thinking, democratic nation where everyone has equal opportunities for personal, familial and financial advancement? That’s just a little over 500 people against over 300 million. How does that happen, if not by deliberate design of the ruling elite?

While I “get” the political posturing and partisanship of political party power hacks to enhance their separate and very diverse political ideologies; I despise the utter un-American mindset and selfishness of the very few of the even fewer of the 535 of our government’s so-called “leaders” to almost never do what’s best for the average American. The “kicking the can down the road” in such critical areas such as health care, tax reform, criminal justice reform, immigration, national security and government administration and accountability is by deliberate design.

While certainly, not all the 535 are at fault, the egregious and offensive blame-game rhetoric, the answer as to why we are currently stuck in the mud as a nation and are dying the death of a thousand cuts by leftists Marxists and anarchist agitators, is because many politicians on both the right and the left want things this way!

I submit to you that all this political turmoil from anti-law enforcement protests, NFL knee-taking, President Trump tweeting, Russian collusion, late night TV and Hollyweird celebrity anti-President commentary are welcome public distractions by the very politicians who are doing nothing but destroying this country. While we are getting aggravated enmass, we are distracted from our politicians’ doing absolutely nothing, or as little as possible to move us all forward as a nation.

The deliberate distraction behavior of these disgraceful politician magicians to allow our social, health, criminal justice and economic problems to continue, only serves to enable those who seek to destroy this country from within.

Have you ever noticed that literally all the politicians we elect to Congress, the Senate, or the Presidency leave office making incredible sums of money that clearly exceed what their initial government salaries were? More importantly, do you know that these so-called servants of the public never have the same social security, retirement, health plans, tax structure, pensions or benefits that we have and that they force upon us? If they too are Americans, then why is this possible? Because we have allowed them to design their own systems for themselves. They have fixed the system, so they can remain in office forever and we let them. In so doing, they have cut us out of advancing personally, as a people and as a nation.

How can we recover as a nation?

Presently, that’s a puzzling question to answer because we are in such bad shape as a nation. It has taken many years to dumb Americans down. Many Americans don’t have the historical or current “context” required to make informed, cogent decisions on their future. The educational system did this to us. Our schools no longer teach civics, the Rule of Law, the Constitution, or the Bill of Rights to students. Hence, young people and adults today really have no idea of what their civil rights are and are not. We have stopped teaching the importance of police in society. Instead, we glorify NFL players, gangster hip-hoppers, and uber-liberal, hypocritical Hollywood celebrities who bring nothing meaningful to our table of American society. Several school districts have removed the Pledge of Allegiance and middle-school and high school football players are copying the NFL ignorant and taking a knee during the signing of the National Anthem. The deliberate diminishing of our national values is a component of our Culture War. History tells us that an isolated, ignorant public is more susceptible to false narratives and propaganda.

Parents who foresaw the importance of education and building employable job skills and sacrificed to get their children into good schools; and those children to paid attention to their parents and obtained a good education and now have professional employment skills are chastised for having “white privilege.” Parents who listened to and voted for weak politicians whose political campaigns were supported by teacher unions, are now forced to have their kids in low performing school systems where the student dropout rate exceeds fifty percent.

The low-educated younger masses and some under-informed adults cheer for fake social justice warriors like Colin Kaepernick and Michael Bennett because they don’t know the difference between freedom of speech and respect for our nation, our flag and our warriors who sacrificed for our freedoms. This is evidence of our Culture War.

The MSM, liberal politicians and militant groups like Black Lives Matter don’t want to talk about the causative factors for the extreme numbers of young black men being slaughtered each week in drug, gang, gun violence incidents. Instead, they only focus on “police violence against black men,” gun control and not the behaviors or sentencing of the shooters. Again, evidence of our Culture War.

Unless decent, hard-working, loyal Americans are willing to become engaged in the political, social, criminal justice and economic issues plaguing our nation, we will not move forward as a nation. We need to completely commit ourselves to draining the national, state and municipal swamps comprised of self-serving bureaucrats who obstruct us from moving forward, just to line their own pockets. We need to support our President and his cabinet in their efforts to drain the swamp to make America great again.

Finally, we need to fight the good fight every day in defending our nation from those people, politicians and groups who wish to destroy this great nation from within in their declared Culture War against us.

Ron Martinelli, Ph.D., CMI-V, is a nationally renowned forensic criminologist and retired police detective with the San Jose (CA) Police Department. Dr. Martinelli directs the nation’s only Forensic Death Investigations & Independent review Team and is the author of the new book, “The Truth Behind the Black Lives Matter Movement and the War on Police,”
The Show: A Thread of Evidence deals with real crime stories; their victims, violators; and cops and forensic investigators who solve those crimes and bring the bad guys to justice. Go out onto the mean streets; visit the crimes scenes and work in the forensic lab with your host nationally renowned forensic criminologist and investigator DrRon Martinelli.